Professor Richard Whatmore

Professor Richard Whatmore

(PhD Cantab.) FRHist.S

Contact Details

Teaching and Research Interests

I came to St Andrews in 2013 from the University of Sussex, where I was Professor of Intellectual History and the History of Political Thought. My research and teaching cover the following topics: Early Modern and Modern Intellectual History (including Politics, International Relations, Political Economy and Religion); Theories of Empire, Democracy and War; Enlightenment and Revolution; Republican Diaspora; Small States and Failed States; Relations between Britain and Europe; Political Cartoons.

Academic Administration

I am currently director of the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual History, convenor of the M Litt in Intellectual History, editor of the journal History of European Ideas (Taylor and Francis), a member of The Bentham Committee (UCL), and Subject Chair of the Arts and Humanities for SCOPUS (Elsevier). I also serve on the boards of several academic journals.

Main Publications

Books and edited books

Republicanism and the French Revolution: An Intellectual History of Jean-Baptiste Say’s Political Economy (Oxford University Press, 2000)

Against War and Empire: Geneva, Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century (Yale University Press, 2012)

What is Intellectual History? (Polity Press, 2015)

Economy, Polity, and Society: Essays in British Intellectual History, 1750-1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), edited with Stefan Collini and Brian Young

History, Religion, and Culture: Essays in British Intellectual History, 1750-1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), edited with Stefan Collini and Brian Young

Advances in Intellectual History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), edited with Brian Young

Companion to Intellectual History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), edited with Brian Young

Recent articles and chapters

‘‘Neither masters nor slaves’. Small states and Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century’, in D. Kelly ed., Lineages of Empire. The Historical Roots of British Imperial Thought, (Oxford University Press and Proceedings of the British Academy no. 155, 2009), 53-81

‘The French and American Revolutions in Comparative Perspective’ in M. Albertone & A. De Francesco eds., Rethinking the Atlantic World. Europe and America in the Age of Democratic Revolutions (Palgrave, 2009), 219-238

‘War, trade and empire: the dilemmas of French liberal political economy, 1780-1816’, in French Liberalism. From Montesquieu to the Present, eds., Antoon Braeckman, Raf Geenens, and Helena Rosenblatt (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 169-191

‘Burke’s Political Economy’ in The Cambridge Companion to Edmund Burke, eds. Christopher Insole and David Dwan (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 80-91

‘The attempts to transfer the Genevan Academy to Ireland and to America, 1782-1795’, The Historical Journal, 56/2 (2013), 345-368, with Jennifer Powell-McNutt

‘Luxury, commerce, and the rise of political economy' in James Harris, ed. The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 2013), 575-595

A lover of peace more than liberty.’ The Genevan response to Rousseau’s politics’ in Avi Lifshitz, ed., Engaging with Rousseau: Reception and Interpretation from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1-16

PhD Students

P. Myles, ‘Thomas Paine and political thought in Lewes’
P. Moorhouse, ‘Joseph Townsend and an end to poverty’
D. Coates, ‘Edmund Burke and the Regicide Peace’
M. Johnson, ‘James Harrington and political thought in Europe’
M. Pollock, ‘Brougham and international relations’
M. Kim, 'Democracy and representation in the French Directory'
L. Long, 'Britain, France and cosmopolitan empire in the 1790s'